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Acquiring Political Intelligence

Executives are smart people, but they can often be remarkably stupid. Too
often they assume problems can be solved with superior analytical abilities.
This means they spend their time trying to come up with the most rational
solution. This might create the best technical solution. However, these
technically perfect results often run into stiff opposition and eventually get
dropped - so often in favour of an inferior solution. This can be disastrous.
It can mean good ideas get shelved, talented managers become frustrated and
unmotivated, and organisations get weighed down. Why does this happen?

We think the reason behind this is many organisations convince themselves that
analytical ability is the only quality that matters. They tell you that people
get ahead on the basis of these abilities and this is how good decisions are
made. However, some organisations are now valuing emotional intelligence as a
supplement to analytical skills. They measure and promote people on the ability
to make sense of people's emotions and social dynamics. But what is still too
often overlooked is political intelligence. This is the understanding
of how power and politics works in the organisation.

Political intelligence is a vital, but the often unnoticed ability, that some
excel in when making their way through the corporate jungle. We wanted to know
what this skill involved. So we systematically analysed all of the researched
conducted on organisational politics over the last 30 years. The research
surveyed covered a wide range of workplaces, involving many thousands of people
in large organisations across the world. Our results have recently been
published in the prestigious US journal, Academy of Management
Annals.

What are the practical insights for practising managers who seek to strengthen
their political intelligence?

1. Accept politics is an inevitable part of organisational
life

First and foremost, managers must drop the fallacy that politics is always
destructive. The great majority of seasoned managers still erroneously believe
that politics in organisational life is a damaging waste of time. They hope for
a workplace free from politics where the most rational solutions will win the
day. Most say they go out of their way to avoid politics. The evidence suggests
that this effectively puts a 'hand-break' on their ability to get things done
well, their career progress, and it will often lead to more stress.

Understanding the political terrain - sometimes three or four decisions in
advance - is an essential part of achieving tasks both small and large. Those
who accept the reality of politics are able to approach these important levers
of power with their eyes wide open. But perhaps more crucially, it will help
them to think ahead and devote time and effort to getting the politics right
around a particular project - rather than simply focusing on how the most
rational decision can be delivered on time.

But believing that politics is the only thing which needs to be
considered is equally dangerous. An over-obsession with political issues can
mean that managers lose sight of other important aspects of organisational
life. A good manager is able to recognise that politics is part of the job, but
not the whole job.

2. Political intelligence can be learned

Typically managers believe that some people by their nature are politically
astute, whereas others are not. This is to some extent true. There are some
basic personality traits such as extraversion and an external locus of control
that made people more likely to be politically savvy. Indeed, psychologists
even suggest there is a personality trait called 'Machiavellianism' which makes
people more politically adept. This entails the ability to be unemotional,
manipulative and not tell people the real reason why they are doing
things.

While some might feel naturally comfortable about engaging in politics, this is
not the end of the story. Oftentimes people who are interested in
organisational politics might not actually be particularly good at it. For
example, they may use power in a ham-fisted way which makes others suspicious
of them or even resentful. Over time this can erode the organisation's trust in
them and compromise effectiveness. In some cases, a leader with low political
intelligence can spark significant resistance, making their objectives much
harder to achieve.

Political skill is something which can be learned. Because it is based on the
complex calculation in real world situations, it is often best acquired through
practice and role-modelling. Good training institutions recognize this when
they create situations and scenarios that school managers in the art of
politics. For instance, one of the big lessons students learn in the MBA
classroom is how to gain some airtime among many other bright people and how to
shift the direction of argument and debate. Similarly, students who attend the
elite colleges at Oxford and Cambridge universities are required to ritually
attend formal dinners and conduct an intelligent conversation with senior
people from a range of disciplinary backgrounds. It is likely that those with
high political intelligence have experienced a number of these pressure cooker
situations which teaches them how to simultaneously compete and collaborate in
order to advance themselves and their projects.

3. Understand the political map of the organisation

Managers with strong political intelligence look beyond the formal chain of
command - they need to also grasp the informal political map of the
organisation. To begin charting this political map, there are four questions
managers should ask themselves:

a. Where are the most important resources in my organisation? One of the most
important sources of power in any organization is scarce resources. These are
things which are vital to keep the organisation going. Such resources can come
in different forms including funding, people, knowledge, and specialist skills.
Affective managers understand where resources are concentrated in their
organisations and who controls them. The holders or gatekeepers of scarce
resources may not always be those with official or formal power.

b. What do the social networks in your organisation look like? A politically
savvy manager understands the informal connections between people in an
organisation. They know who talks with whom, where hidden conflicts and
loyalties are, and who they can approach for important information. What is
more, they have a good understanding of where there are disconnections in the
organisation's social network. For instance, they might observe too few lateral
lines of communication between two departments that depend on one another. By
constructing a detailed political map of the organisation, they know where they
should try to position themselves, and how different decisions require the
activation of different parts of an ever shifting social network.

c. What are the deeply rooted values in my organisation? Politically skilled
managers usually have an excellent sense of informal changes in mood, beliefs
and values in their organisation. They understand what is important to
different people in the organisation, and what kinds of arguments different
people will buy (and what they will not). For example, if a firm seeks to
restructure its IT team, how will this impact on the morale of firm as a whole?
How much goodwill is in reserve, and when do I know when it is becoming
dangerously low?

d. Which identities are most important? A highly politically savvy manager
understands how people in the organisation think about themselves in terms of
roles, importance and future plans. Which collective identities in the
organisation are people most attached to? What are they proud of, but also
anxious and ashamed of? People who have acquired this skill are able to frame
proposals and decisions in a manner that appear to bolster a valued identity -
or at the very least, do no harm to it. For instance, when new electronic
technologies were introduced in libraries, they were largely presented to
librarians as an aid which would help them to be better librarians (rather than
replacing them).

3. Build up your repertoire of political tactics

The third big lesson from our research is that managers with strong political
intelligence tend to build up a tool-box of political tactics over time. The
three most important tactics we noticed in the literature were:

a. Gaining control over critical resources. The most political skilled managers
could not only see the distribution of resources in their organization; they
were also adept at gaining control over them. Sometimes this is difficult when
obvious resources such as budgets or large divisions of people were at stake.
But any alternative route involved gaining control over resources which were
crucial to the functioning of the organisation, but were often underestimated
or overlooked.

b. Use networks to bridge 'structural holes'. Skilled organisational
politicians are strategic in their networking. They do not just go out their
way to make as many contacts as possible. The problem with this strategy is
that it takes too much time. Instead they seek to nurture a small number of
selective relationships. These connections ideally bridge 'structural holes' in
an organisation, important disconnects between different clusters of personnel.
When managers can successfully act as a bridge between two otherwise separate
networks, they often obtain privileged access to information, resources and
much more.

c. Packaging projects that resonate with widely accepted values. Politically
savvy managers are good at packaging their ideas or proposals in a way that
appeals to a wide range of stakeholders in the organisation. They intuitively
understand how to connect their proposals to deeply seated values which exist
in different parts of the organisation. The best managers are often able to
work with a range of different values. For instance, if they are talking with
engineers, they are able to appeal to technical arguments. If they are engaging
with the finance department, they can use a financial lexicon. Actors with high
political intelligence are multilingual insofar as they can speak the language
of different professional communities in the organisation.

4. Be ready to play the political game at many levels

The final lesson we learned from the evidence is that many of the best
organisational politicians were able to activate their tactics on a number of
levels. They would often try one approach (say among peers), and if that didn't
work reformulate and then try another level (say, subordinates or external
organisational stakeholders). Here are the different directions and levels that
people with strong political intelligence were able to successfully
influence:

a. Downwards. This involves influencing and persuading subordinates in order to
garner support. We found that direct commands rarely did the trick -
particularly in complex organisations which offer ample room for various types
of resistance. Often the most successful organizations combined a range of more
subtle exercises of power which made subordinates think they were following
their own interests while actually complying with a manager's project.

b. Sideways. We also found in the research that managers often ignored their
peers when seeking to promote a project or make a proposal successful. However,
those that did often utilized a high level of political intelligence, because
they had to avoid being perceived a manipulative, self-interested or
competitive. For this reason, sideways politicking often relies on more subtle
forms of power such as the control of attractive scarce resources, appeals to
collaborative values and shared identities.

c. Upwards. Seeking to influence upwards in their organisations in one of the
biggest challenges managers can face. Those who successfully do so avoid
aggressive commands born out of frustration. Nor do they expect support from
superiors by merely appealing to self-evident information. Instead, they seek
to build informal networks that have upward influence, go the extra-mile in
order to develop a cache of returnable favours, and prove themselves
indispensable to the frim by building a strong reputation, especially under
stressful conditions. However, the politically intelligent manager also
understands that these tactics can have a downside. Their good deeds may not be
returned, and they may even find themselves exploited. Moreover, they risk the
perception among peers of gratuitously currying favour with superiors.

d. Outwards. In addition to influencing people within the organisation, skilled
politicians are able to span organisational boundaries and engage with
stakeholders beyond the formal enterprise. This might involve swaying
legislators, professional communities, investors and a range of other important
groups. Being able to mobilise these extra-organisational bodies makes it
easier to create the conditions for desired change and outcomes. Once again,
there is a danger here that politically intelligent actors are well aware of.
For example, if superiors feel that you have brought undue attention to the
firm - from a legislator or professional body - there can be very negative
repercussions. Moreover, external power holders may be unpredictable, and once
activated behave in unanticipated ways.

In conclusion, we have found that these are the main features of political
intelligence we observed in our survey of a large body of literature and
research. The final lesson we learned from this research is that those with
strong political behaviour intelligence often have a very astute understanding
of how their behaviour is perceived by others. They avoid being labelled
'Machiavellian' at all costs because it can instil paranoid among important
stakeholders ('can I really be honest with this person, or will they stab me in
the back'). They also have a good sense of timing, especially concerning when
not to be political (e.g., negatively discussing your boss when he or
she is away on vacation). And finally, political intelligence appears to be
strongest among those who can achieve their objectives by carefully resonating
with the needs, identities and goals of others.